"[W]hile the pen is mightier than the sword, the wallet is mightier than the pen." - George Monbiot, "I have been a journalist for 40 years. The forces ranged against my profession have never been so powerful"
"To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle. One thing that helps toward it is to keep a diary, or, at any rate, to keep some kind of record of one’s opinions about important events. Otherwise, when some particularly absurd belief is exploded by events, one may simply forget that one ever held it." - George Orwell, "In Front of Your Nose" (March 22, 1946)
The democratic backslide into authoritarianism seems to be accelerating, picking up momentum. It's difficult to keep pace with it, to remember what things were like before the unthinkable became normal. On a daily, even hourly, basis terrible things are happening. So I'm going to try to take Orwell's advice, if nothing else to help keep my mental equilibrium.
A month ago in San Bernardino, California Customs and Border Patrol agents shot at a car that fled away from one of their DHS traffic stops/kidnapping attempts. Unidentified men in masks, dressed like the villains from any movie where there is a repressive totalitarian regime, stopped the car at gunpoint, would not identify themselves or why they were stopping the vehicle. When the family in the vehicle would not roll down the windows or get out of the car the agents smashed the car windows and attempted to reach in the vehicle to drag them out, as we've seen done multiple times. The car drove off and was shot at three times; when the family got home they called 911 and reported that unidentified men stopped them at gunpoint and shot at them while they escaped. DHS meanwhile said that the agents were justified in shooting at the car because they tried to run them down, although DHS claims every incident of violence they perpetuate is justified even though their credibility is shrinking to nil.
In none of the news reports I saw about this incident did I see this question raised: why are Customs and Border Patrol agents conducting traffic stops and immigration raids in American cities? I'm seeing almost no coverage of the now normal practice of pulling federal agents from their actual jobs and having them conduct immigration raids. Perhaps this is why we keep seeing unprofessional and thuggish behavior from these agents. (Behavior like gang tackling a food delivery worker in D.C. and punching him in the skull repeatedly for no apparent reason, other than hate.)
When I saw that news story I knew that it would only be a matter of time before these tactics precipitated someone's death, that someone would end up shot in the street at one of these raids. That happened yesterday outside of Chicago in under almost identical circumstances, except it was ICE agents this time. DHS keeps trying to assert unilateral authority to report its narrative and the targets of their extreme tactics are not supposed to have a say in their defense and the public is not supposed to be able to hold DHS accountable, which is why its agents hide their faces and illegally hide their communications.
We are witnessing a fundamental restructuring of our relationship to government: the government is supposed to be accountable to the people, but for this regime they are accountable to no one but we are accountable to them and have the choice to comply and maybe get disappeared or not comply and maybe get shot dead in the street.
"This is it. This portion of your limited time, the part before you've managed to get on top of everything, or dealt with your procrastination problem, or graduated or found a partner or retired; and before the survival of democracy or the climate have been secured: this part matters just as much as any other and arguably even more than any other, since the past is gone and the future hasn't occurred yet, so right now is the only time that really exists." - Oliver Burkeman, Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts
"In an age of attention scarcity, the greatest act of good citizenship may be learning to withdraw your attention from everything except the battles you've chosen to fight." - Oliver Burkeman, Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts
